What is and What Should Never be
by Shire cat
Summary: Seymour’s in Hell and the people there aren’t very happy to see him. Not at all.


Seymour's in Hell and the people there aren't very happy to see him. Not at all.

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"Bye bye, Seymo'," boomed the plant.

Seymour saw head-first the plant's version of what would have been a human's tracheal tube as he was swallowed whole, the blade he had attempted to kill it with glinting as he stabbed uselessly.

He felt himself dissolving as though he had been bathed in quicklime, stinging and burning worse than anything he'd ever felt. 'It's eating me,' he thought, 'the damn thing's digesting me.'

Though he had jumped in its mouth in his attempt to kill it, part of him felt strangely indignant about the realization it was truly eating him, as a father would an ungrateful child. Almost a 'This is the thanks I get?' Had he been able to shake his head, he would have done so at his own absurdity.

Everything went black. This was dying, he supposed, painful and black-and suddenly, not black anymore.

Everything was green, though not like the inside of the plant would look (or as far as he imagined it would look). In fact, it didn't much look like the inside of anything. It looked open. As open as anything could be open. It wasn't a comforting openness though, not welcoming or bespeaking freedom. No, this was an eerie, malicious openness that seemed endless, lonely, an abyss. It seemed a place to get lost and never be found again. It made him feel small and frightened as a child in a department store. Or rather, he reflected, like he had as a boy, lost in the city after sneaking through a hole in the fence at the orphanage. Always too curious, that little Seymour Krelborn. Exploring places, looking at, wondering about things he shouldn't. Mr. Mushnik had seen him shivering, afraid in front of the Skid Row flower shop; "Are you lost, little boy? Can't find your parents?…"

There was no one to save him now, he reflected bitterly, and this was what he wanted, hadn't he? He'd lost the closest thing he'd ever had to a father, even if he had been manipulative and verbally abusive and he'd lost the only girl he'd ever loved. This was all he could do to make it right, wasn't it? He'd owed this thing his life, all that had mattered in his life, and that was what he gave it, his life, to stop it. That was all he could offer. Didn't that have to make everything right?

And where was he, anyway? Everything was green; he even had green mist surrounding him making it look like the air itself was green. And not a calming, healthy green. A noxious, acid green. The color of a poisonous plant he had seen in a book once as a boy. He remembered marveling and fearing the fact that nature could make something so harmful in the same way it made all the harmless, helpful, beautiful plants. Ironic, he realized, considering nature had made both himself and Audrey II.

He was starting to feel uncomfortable, both trapped and exposed by the openness of the place. Like he could run for days and never find anything to help him but whatever was looming over him could still be at his back. Suddenly, he considered he might be in Hell.

"How can I go to Hell if I'm Jewish?" he wondered aloud, "I guess we've got it wrong. Or maybe God just makes exceptions. And I would be the exception, wouldn't I?"

He realized, startled, that the stinging was gone. In fact, he couldn't feel anything anymore. Well, not bodily, anyway. Looking down, his body was intact again despite the fact that it seemed to serve no purpose anymore. He supposed this was what a ghost felt like.

Then, he immediately felt that he wasn't alone anymore.

Coming towards him were two people whose faces he had only ever dreamed before. A thin, brunette man of medium height with curly hair and a similarly built blond woman next to him, wearing thick glasses. They couldn't be-

"Mom? Dad?"

"I'm glad we never knew you." His mother said coldly

It was a voice he'd longed to hear ever since he'd had his first nightmare and always as he'd imagined it, beautiful and clear like a songbird but not the way he'd imagined it; wrathful and angry.

"To do something as horrible as you've done…" His father was disgusted

Seymour felt shame rise in him, hot and sick.

"I made a mistake. I'm sorry! I tried to fix it! I tried …"

But they were gone, suddenly as they'd come and Seymour wasn't sure if being alone was worse than the accusations.

He realized he was no longer alone.

A greasy pompadour bounced its way up to him, with the grinning face and form of Orin Scrivello attached to it. The sadistic ex-dentist wore a smirk that would have made Seymour sick to his stomach, if his stomach still felt like it was part of his body.

"Yew killed me fer hurtin' her dincha? That right, boy? You Mr. Righteous Avenger? Yew thought **I** wuz cruel? I had nothin' awn yew, boy! I hurt people alright, I caused 'em pain, sure but at least I let 'em live. Now yew, yew killed 'im by doin' nothin' at all. You wanted 'em dead an' yew put them in the situation an' yew let 'em die. That's some trick, boy. I jus' wanted 'em to hurt a little; yew went fer total annihilation. An' I thought **I **was a sadist! You're jus' like me, boy!"

And suddenly Orin vanished only to be replaced by the aggrieved face of Mr. Mushnik.

"You were like a son to me, you know. Truly. Some son. After I pulled you out of that Hell of an orphanage. You were the Ham to my Noah. Betrayed me, you did. I wanted to share in the wealth was all. That was all I asked. I wouldn't have taken you to the police, you know. But no, you had to have the plant all to yourself, didn't you? It was a sickness, you and that thing. And Audrey…"

No sooner had he said the words than his place was resumed by-No! It was too cruel! It couldn't be…

There she was; his perfect rose. Hating him.

"I thought you loved me Seymour. But it was never about me, was it? It was about the power, the positions, the money the plant gave you. Never about me. You said it was for me. You killed Orin 'for me'; you kept milkin' the plant for money and fame 'for me'. But it wasn't for me. It was all for you. You didn't, you don't deserve my love."

He couldn't contain himself.

"No, Audrey! Whatever else I am, whatever else I did, I love you!"

He tried to go towards her but instead came face to face with Audrey II

"Hello, Seymo'." The plant cackled nastily.

"Get away from me! You're an evil, manipulative monster. I hate you!"

It chuckled again.

"Don't you see? Seymo', baby, I **am **you!"

Seymour saw vines fly from his own body, green and leafy. They twisted round, and round strangling him. He felt mad panic as he realized he was choking the life out of himself…

Seymour woke with a startled cry, sweating and thrashing out of his bed sheets, almost falling from his cot to the floor. He just couldn't take this anymore. He held his head in his hands as he resolutely decided he'd had enough. Those fools from NBC were coming in the morning. He'd let them do their thing, whatever, that stupid contract he'd signed, and then he'd end it. All of it. He'd put an end to that goddamned vegetable once and for all.


End file.
